I thought it about time I introduced myself.
I am a very boring person, living alone and trying to keep on top of all the gardening etc...and failing miserably.
My main achievement in life is the raising of two super boys to be good citizens.
Last September I became a grandma for the first time to Henry Edward, the wonderful son of my youngest boy and my amazing daughter-in-law.
My past interests included evening classes at night school in academic subjects,but my main interest was my 'membership' of the Special Constabulary. I had to take the Police entrance exam and learn first aid, and had the same powers as a 'regular' officer.
My main interest now...since 1999 is genealogy. I have managed to trace my direct ancestry through my father's line back to 1600 in Wakefield in Yorkshire and an unproved line back to 1500 thanks to records on the internet.
I have had two rescue dogs over the years, and I hope I gave them a happy life. One was a rough collie..the 'Lassie' type; the other was Bob a labrador who died last year.
My main moans include rubbish cable tv, the Government, taxes and the general cost of living.I am interested in most issues..human and animal but am not an impassioned activist. I leave that to the fit and able these days.

Well, I've bored you long enough so I'll say Cheerio for now from June and England!

Last edited by jhawk on Tue Mar 27, 2007 7:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Genealogy... that's nice for a few generations, but why go back so far?

The more you go back, the more ancestors you have. If you go back too far, you have more ancestors than there were people... which means you share ancestry with your neighbour or spouse.

In 1807, I have 1,022 ancestors (1802 pop: 1 billion people).
In 1607, I have 262,142 ancestors.
In 1507, I have 4,194,302 ancestors (1500 pop: 500 million people).
In 1332, I have 536,870,910 ancestors.
In 1232, I have 8,589,934,590 ancestors (more than the current pop).
In 7, I have 4,835,703,278,458,518,000,000,000 ancestors (In 1 CE there were 200-400 million people).

Ah well, I'm not too sure about my calculations... In any case, you don't need as many people as I stated, because most of them are born in later years. My mistake.

No problem !
Have you tried tracing your ancestors ? It can be absorbing, fascinating, sad at times, but very satisfying. It helps of course if you are tracing an unusual name. I couldn't do much until all the info became available on the computer.
I was in the Archives in my home town of Nottingham when the world heard of the events of 9/11.
My friend and I had just exit-ted, about to go home when my friend's husband phoned on his mobile and told us what had happened.
I don't know how my friend managed to drive home safely, as she has relatives in New York; luckily they were away on holiday at the time.

What about these people from countries such as Bulgaria?...Would you do the same for them?...

Unfortunately, I can only trace people who have their origins in this country up to 1901. There are some emigration records, but not many. Then of course there is the language barrier.I don't know of the records kept abroad. Some websites have details of Brits who have settled abroad, but there are not many. The Mormons' web site may have some records. A lot of Service records were stored in London but were destroyed during the Blitz.
The records I mainly use are the census records taken every 10 years from 1841, with a pause during the WW1 and WW2. , but these are only made public 100 years after the censuses.The next to be made public will be the 1911 census.
Also, we have a mass of parish records, births, marriages and deaths on the Net. Most of these records were not on-line until the late '90s.
In brief, if anyone abroad wants details of their relatives...resident in this country up to 1901, I may be able to help . If their name is a very common one, then the chance of finding the right family is very remote.

Let me know which name you are interested in, the area (town etc.)where they lived and approx date and I'll see what I can do.